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News Digest : 20 February to 26 February, 2016

Thursday, 3 March 2016

★ Siachen braveheart Lance Naik Hanumanthappa Koppad passed away on
the 11th of this month at the Army's research and referral hospital in New
Delhi. He had slipped into a deeper state of coma and was extremely critical
with worsening multiple organ dysfunction. Lance Naik Hanumanthappa was found to be conscious but drowsy and disoriented when he was evacuated to the army's base camp at Siachen Glacier. He was flown to Delhi from
Siachen Glacier in a special air ambulance. Hanumanthappa was miraculously found alive after remaining buried under huge mass of snow for six
days at Siachen Glacier.

★ Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley has named Ishrat
Jehan as an Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative who was involved in shooting
police at a post. Ishrat Jahan along with three others was killed in an encounter in 2004. David Headley said this while deposing before the Special Mumbai court via video conferencing from an undisclosed location in the US.
Headley also confirmed there was a separate naval wing in LeT. Earlier,
David Headley had revealed that two failed attempts were made prior to the
26/11 Mumbai attacks by the same 10 terrorists involved in the terror attack
in 2008. Headley admitted that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi was the operational
commander of LeT.

★ Indian economy will grow at a 5 year high of 7.6 percent, in the fiscal ending
March 2015, overtaking a slowing China, on the back of improvement in manufacturing and farm sectors. Buoyed by a spurt in manufacturing and farm
sector, country's economy projected to grow by 7.6 percent during the current Financial year. This will be the highest in 5 years, surpassing even China's growth rate. GDP will expand by 7.6 percent in 2015-16, compared with 7.2 percent a year earlier according to the Central Statistics Office. The previous high at 8.9 percent was recorded in 2010-11.

★ Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has barred service providers
from offering or charging discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis
of content being accessed by a consumer. The Authority issued regulations in this regard prohibiting them from entering into any arrangement, agreement or contract, with any person that may cause discriminatory tariffs. It has provided for a penalty of 50 thousand rupees for each day on service providers if they flout the order.

★ The United Arab Emirates' national oil company the Abu Dhabi National Oil
Company has agreed to store crude oil in India's maiden strategic storage and give two-third of the oil to India free. India is building underground storages at Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur to store about 5.33 million tonnes of crude oil to guard against global price shocks and supply disruptions. Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the Company is keen on taking half of the 1.5 million tonne capacity Mangalore facility. The 1.33 million tonnes Visakhapatnam storage and 2.5 million tonnes Padur stockpile together with the 1.5 million tonnes of Mangalore storage can meet the nation's oil requirement of about 10 days.

★ India and the United Arab Emirates, UAE, signed four key agreements in the
sphere of cyber security, infrastructure, renewable energy and finance. The
pacts were inked after talks between visiting Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi
Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at
Hyderabad House in New Delhi.

★ India resumed fuel supplies to Nepal through its Raxaul border after agitating
Madhesis called off their nearly five-month-long blockade. Obstruction by protesters was removed from the main 'Maitreyi' Bridge connecting the two countries. Of the total fuel consumption in Nepal, 70 per cent fuel is supplied
through this transit route. Indian Oil Corporation's Raxaul depot loaded 3 lakh
litres of petroleum products into Nepal Oil Corporation tankers and sent them
to Nepal.

★ The Centre has extended its flagship scheme Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao to an
additional 61 districts across eleven states. The scheme which was launched
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Haryana last year, seeks to improve the
declining trend of child sex ratio in selected districts. In the first phase, the
programme was launched in 100 districts with poor sex ratio across the country.

★ The second phase of odd-even number scheme for cars in Delhi will be implemented from 15 April, 2016. Announcing this, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the scheme will continue for 15 days.

★ Union Road Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has said that the
centre wants to make the river Ganga a growth engine for the areas where it flows from. Speaking to media in Lucknow, Mr. Gadkari said that national river Ganga is being developed as a main hub of water transport in the country with an approximate cost of Rs. 3,000 crore. All efforts are also being made to restore the purity and its perpetual flow, he said. In a stretch of 1,620 KMs between Haldia and Varanasi, three multi-modal hubs will be developed along with thirty water ports and twenty five small terminus in route of Ganga Water Way, Minister said.

★ Centre has set the target of eliminating Malaria from the country by 2030. Launching the National Framework for Malaria Elimination in New Delhi,
Health Minister J P Nadda said the Government has committed to achieving
the target, which requires huge financial resources. The Minister said 70 percent of Malaria cases and 69 percent of Malaria deaths among South East
Asian Region countries occur in India. He said the objective of the framework
is to reduce the incidence of Malaria to less than one case per thousand populations a year in all states by 2024. He also urged the states to include
Malaria eradication programme in their policy.

★ Noted Urdu poet and well known Bollywood lyricist Nida Fazli passed away
in Mumbai after suffering a heart attack. He was 78. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed condolence over the demise of the Urdu poet.

★ In a landmark discovery for physics and astronomy, international scientists
including from India, claim to have glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, or ripples in space time. Two US-based underground detectors known as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory, LIGO, observed the phenomenon. Researchers said Thursday that when two black holes collided some 1.3 billion years ago, the joining of those two great masses sent forth a wobble that hurtled through space and arrived at Earth on September 14, 2015 when it was picked up by the LIGO. Albert Einstein
had predicted the existence of these waves in 1916 as a consequence of his
General Theory of Relativity.